By Marta Nogueira
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Energy companies operating in Brazil are expected to resume oil shipments to the United States after several oil products were exempted from U.S. tariffs, the head of Brazilian oil lobby group IBP told Reuters on Wednesday.
Oil is Brazil’s top export to the U.S. and was exempt from the 10% April tariff imposed on Brazilian exports, but uncertainty over whether the commodity would be exempt under new tariffs announced on July 9 led to a halt in shipments for most of the month.
However, while President Donald Trump’s decree on Wednesday hiked tariffs against Brazil to 50%, it excluded several major Brazilian exports from the measures, which included orange juice, some aircraft, pulp and energy products.
“We are out of the tariff,” said Roberto Ardenghy, president of IBP.
IBP represents oil companies operating in Brazil including Petrobras, Shell, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Equinor.
Due to earlier uncertainty over the tariffs, instead of shipping their product to the United States, companies were storing oil on floating production vessels or on cargo ships, Ardenghy said.
Because it takes around 21 days for a shipment to reach the U.S. from Brazil, oil shipments were stopped once it became impossible to reach their destination before August 1, he said.
In 2024, Brazil exported a total of 1.78 million barrels per day, of which 243,000 bpd went to the U.S., according to government data compiled by consultancy group StoneX.
If no exemption for oil had been forthcoming, Brazil would have redirected shipments to Europe and India, Ardenghy said.
Magda Chambriard, CEO of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil firm, had also said the company would not be majorly affected and could redirect flows to other regions.
“Placing tariffs on our products is a lose-lose game,” said Ardenghy.
(Reporting by Marta Nogueira; writing by Fabio Teixeira; Editing by Leslie Adler and Rosalba O’Brien)
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